Footage has emerged of the Foxtel Group CEO performing a Nazi salute over a decade ago, appearing to jokingly mimic the infamous action from 1996 of former Socceroos player Mark Bosnich who appears alongside him in the video.
The Sydney Morning Herald published the video of Patrick Delany on Tuesday, which they said appeared to be an off-air recording from the 2014-15 A-League season, between October 2014 and May 2015. At the time Delany was chief executive of Fox Sports.
In the video Delany appears on the Fox Sports Hyundai A-League set alongside Bosnich, who was a presenter, demonstrating the studio’s new virtual soccer ball.
After Bosnich asks Delany to kick the virtual ball, Delany says: “We’ll do it like you would have done.”
Delany then performs the Nazi salute before kicking the virtual ball. Bosnich claps and says: “There you go, big boss, thank you very much.”
In 1996, as Aston Villa’s goalkeeper in the English premier league, Bosnich performed a Nazi salute during a break in play in front of the crowd at Tottenham, a London club noted for its considerable Jewish following. Bosnich was fined £1,000 (A$1,930) and found guilty of misconduct by the Football Association.
An image of Delany making the gesture was first published by Crikey on Sunday.
In an all-staff email sent the same day, seen by the Guardian, Delany acknowledged “a ten-year-old photograph of me making an inappropriate salute which is highly offensive to the Jewish community was published online”.
Now, with the source of that photo established, Delany issued a further apology on Tuesday.
“As I said earlier this week, it is difficult to recall events from ten years ago,” Delany said in a statement.
“This additional context does not take away from the hurt I have caused, or the sincerity of my apologies.”
Foxtel confirmed Delany met with the president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, David Ossip, on Monday to apologise to the Jewish community.
Ossip said Delany understood the offence and hurt the gesture causes Jewish Australians and those whose family members were killed or injured fighting the Nazis during the second world war.
“We accept Patrick’s apology and recognise his and Lachlan Murdoch’s strong and unequivocal repudiation of antisemitism in Australia over the past 10 months,” Ossip said.
“At this time of heightened antisemitism, we hope that this incident serves as a valuable reminder about where unbridled hatred ultimately leads and reinforces the need to educate our next generation about the atrocities perpetrated in service of the evil Nazi ideology.”
Foxtel’s communication team sent an all-staff note from Delany to Foxtel Group employees on Sunday evening, after Crikey published the photo.
“I have been searching my mind for a circumstance, from over a decade ago, where a photo capturing me in this pose could ever be possible. The picture is completely inconsistent with my values and beliefs, and family connections,” the message from Delany said.
He said he condemned antisemitism “in any form” and he acknowledged “the seriousness of my actions”.
After Bosnich’s Nazi-style salute in 1996, the Australian goalkeeper phoned in to BBC Radio 5 Live and apologised. He said the gesture was intended to be a joke and was “something done out of ignorance”.
Guardian Australia has sought comment from Bosnich.
